Historically and logically, two kinds of lycanthropy should be distinguished. The first involves a delusion in which an individual believes himself to be a wolf. Pathological lycanthropes have been described in classical writings dating back to Marcellus Sidetes, a native of Side in Pamphylia, Asia Minor, who lived in the reigns of the Roman emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, a.d. 117-161. Discussion of this form of shape shifting appeared in such early medical writings as those of the Greek Paulus Aegineta (seventh century a.d.) and of the Arabic physicians ibn-Sina (Avicenna; 979-1037) and Haly Abbas (Ali ibn al Abbas; died 994). Nowadays, a medical rarity, pathological lycanthropes were common during a time of hysterical occultism in medieval Europe, when, driven into the woods by their mania, they would howl at night and seek victims to mangle and devour.
The other type of lycanthropy involves a folkloristic belief that men actually do assume wolf form and character, by virtue either of an inherent factor or magic. The antiquity of belief in this kind of shape shifting is documented by the writings of such classical authors as Pliny and Petronius and perhaps by the Odyssey's story of Circe. A great outcropping of lycanthropous belief occurred during the wave of Satanism (usually defined as the worship of the Devil) which swept through Europe soon after the Middle Ages. In the 16th century such notorious "werewolves" as Pierre Burgot, Michel Verdun, Gilles Garnier, and Peter Stumpf were placed on trial and executed by French and German ecclesiastical courts. Becoming a werewolf--a word of controversial etymology often used to include any sanguinary man-animal--can be involuntary or voluntary. According to the belief in werewolfism, those born with a certain inherent disposition may be transformed against their will, particularly during the full moon. Sometimes the metamorphosis is the result of contact with another werewolf or his spittle. Evil persons are often thought to have the power to transform an innocent man or woman, or even themselves, usually by rubbing their bodies with an ointment, donning a special girdle, or simply willing it. In their bestial condition, werewolves can be detected, supposedly, by their humanlike eyes and short or missing tails. The chief mode of exposure is through "repercussion," in which a wound inflicted on the animal is later apparent on the human. Ordeals were once used to get people to confess, which they sometimes did out of morbid craving for attention. A lycanthrope is best freed of his condition, supposedly, by wounding him on the brow, preferably between the eyes. In the folklore of Italy, a baby conceived on the night of St. Paul or the Annunciation is apt to be a werewolf, and as a precaution his father or grandfather can liberate him by taking a lighted coal and burning the sole of his foot or nape of his neck.
It would be a mistake to view lycanthropy within the narrow limits of time and space. The werehyenas, werefoxes, weretigers, and wereleopards of Ethiopia, China, India, and Malaysia, respectively, probably stem from a common natural tradition; but the wider phenomenon of which they are a part is a basic, multiple-sourced belief in animal metamorphosis. Swan maidens, vampires, and totems are part of this ancient tradition.
"In night's clear skies. crystal eyes. howl at the moon. through the gloom. they're but one of us. one of me. don't you see? they see you. apart and free. on my knees. the moon beckons me." -- Morwin
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